Why 2009 is THE Year for Social Media!

How many of you tried to take advantage of Staples.com’s free version of Quickbooks Pro 09 yesterday? I got my copy – first thing in the morning, but my dad tried in the afternoon and they were sold out. What happened? Well, I think Social Media happened, and that’s a lesson in Why you need Social Media in 2009.

There’s a reason this post went hot at Sphinn and why I’ve seen it “ReTweeted” quite a few times in my Twitter stream. As someone who works in an agency – we’ve hit the wall a few times on getting the executive office AND clients on board with Social Media. Todd Malicoat was right – we’re pitching it wrong.

Be sure you read and share the “How to Pitch Social Media Markeitng Internally in 6 Easy Steps” to get some ideas on how to get the bean counters and personnel managers on board. Here are some highlights:

Demonstrate the need and importance of links to search engine rankings – don’t talk about links SHOW what happens when there are no links. I was doing this wrong – and will be fixing that shortly.

Explain the value and process for obtaining links – “We need to get links” isn’t good enough – explain how complicated it is and how spending time on linkbait might be the answer.

My takeaway? Plan the approach to social media the same way you attack a client you really want to land – be thorough, thoughtful and VERY prepared – don’t just expect them to take your word for it – show them the benefits and the roadblocks.

Malicoat then goes into the real meat of his article – the actual 9 reasons. My favorites are “Your Competition is Doing it” followed closely by “You can’t buy links anymore.”

If you’re trying to get a Social Media campaign going but your boss, your agency or your clients are hesitant -this is a must read article. I’ve filed it in my “arsenal” file of things to use when I need to persuade someone to agree with me.

Carrie Hill is the SEO Team leader for Blizzard Internet Marketing where she specializes in optimizing travel, tourism and lodging websites

@Erno – nice observation, but the “You can’t buy links anymore” statement was made by Todd Malicoat, not us. Buying links should be done wearing protective gloves, but that doesn’t mean people don’t still buy them–they just now come with a “handle with care” label.

http://www.ernohannink.nl Erno Hannink

Andy, I understand you have to be very careful when buying links. There are still too many companies that are trying these short cuts for more links. Why not do something your target groups really likes; have a perfect product or service, this will get you links any time. It just is a longer route to take, but also with longer lasting results. Right?

I agree, social media is the future. Speed and ease of communication, as you indicte in your article is apparent, and is very powerful. I read recently that facebook was adding something like 7 new members every minute. That’s massive growth! The implications are equally massive.

I think like many things, social media marketing is vastly overhyped. It’s my observation that the people making the most out of social media marketing are the ones selling courses and products teaching people how to succeed with social media marketing.

There’s no doubt it’s useful for some businesses and industries. For others, I think it’s largely a waste of time. The trick is to know the difference.

Another downside to it is it’s labour intensive: you stop doing it and you drop off the radar entirely. Not terribly efficient, even if it’s effective.

And last of all is the old adage… if everyone’s doing something, then do the opposite. It has a lot of merit. There is a lot more to marketing than just the Internet. I think too many people forget this, especially many marketing professionals, who really ought to know better.

I think the advantage of social media is the buzz that serround it at the moment.

http://themakemoneyfromhomeblog.com Kenney and Kim

I totally agree with social marketing really taking off even more in ’09, “as if it hasn’t already”. But what I am totally stoked to see the social media advertising models, like Technorati’s Engage, Myspace and Facebook ads. I can’t wait to see how they turn out this coming year. Also ’09 will be huge for businesses who give away “valuable” stuff. They will generate more leads and more sales in the short and long run.

http://www.techoss.com Greg Burrus

“You cant buy links anymore” hmmm i see people still buying but not sure why they are buying. I like the direction your talking about because i see the social media links having much more value since someone real is actually commenting and someone else can follow. I say onward and upward with social media. The corps will come on board.

http://www.free-istuff.co.uk Milo

Social Media of 2009 will be the new Social Networking of 2008….
I think that makes sense?

http://www.argentinawarez.com/ Argentina Warez

I think the social media is one of the best inventions, i send everyday to Digg and Delicious and some days to Mister Wong, StumbleUpon

As I click all the links of commentors to find out what business they are in, it becomes very apparent that they are almost all other bloggers trying to get a reputation for themselves and their websites (happens on all blogs). Don’t get me wrong, I’m posting my own as well, but you’d hope that Google figures this out at some point and puts far less importance on it. While I understand that the democracy idea is a good one, it quickly turns into meritocracy and then, due to the nature of the search beast, a monarchy. Importance of relevancy has taken a back seat lately and I do hope that social media is tamed this year from an SEO perspective. I do admit though, as far as SEO goes, it’s far easier than it used to be in this ‘everyone link to everyone’ type of world…